The statue is an offering to Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead

Jun 24, 2013 06:43 GMT  ·  By

An ancient Egyptian statue that has spent the past 80 years tucked away in a display case at the Manchester Museum can seemingly turn all by itself.

Museum employees say that, although visitors do not have access to the statue and they themselves have never even considered opening the display case and altering its position, it often happens that the statue turns some 180 degrees.

When this happens, the statue ends up facing the back of the display case it is kept in. Museum employees are left with no choice except open the glass cabinet and turn it the right way by hand.

“I noticed one day that it had turned around. I thought it was strange because it is in a case and I am the only one who has a key. I put it back, but then the next day it had moved again,” curator Campbell Price told the press.

Museum employees only became aware of the fact that the statue turns on its out after setting up cameras and piecing together time-lapse videos showing this odd phenomena.

Until then, they assumed that a person kept turning it when they were not paying attention.

The statue is estimated to be 4,000 years old, and it represents an offering to Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead.

It was discovered inside a mummy's tomb, and measures about 10 inches (25 centimeters) in height, Daily Mail reports.

Specialists explain that the statue has a prayer asking for “beer, bread, oxen and fowl” inscribed on its back.

As was to be expected, the news that this ancient Egyptian statue is able to move on its own sparked quite a controversy.

Some say that the relic is most likely cursed, and fear that the statue houses some spirit whose presence causes it to move about inside its display case.

Others are fairly confident that there is no mystery, and that the statue rotates because of vibrations caused by people walking past it.

Since the relic only moves during daytime, it is likely that this explanation is closer to the truth that the spiritual one.